: Paul Ferrar
: The Affair of the Deviant Bishop
: Vivid Publishing
: 9781923078390
: The Affair of the Deviant Bishop
: 1
: CHF 5.20
:
: Krimis, Thriller, Spionage
: English
: 274
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
In the heart of a Kenyan game park, a retired policeman's death shatters the tranquil landscape. Officially marked as the work of Masai tribesmen, doubts linger for two young biologists, Marion and Nicholas, who knew the victim well. Determined to uncover the truth, they plunge into a treacherous investigation, only to find themselves entangled in a web of deceit and danger. The deceased, an esteemed police inspector, was on the trail of ivory poachers before his demise. With a chief suspect seemingly protected by an airtight alibi-a renowned ornithologist on a distant safari-their quest for justice becomes a perilous game. Yet, as Marion and Nicholas unearth clues, they unwittingly become targets themselves, locked in a deadly dance of pursuit and evasion. As evidence mounts against the suspect, the elusive truth remains just out of reach. Until an unexpected ally emerges: the Red Bishop, a tiny avian marvel with a secret of its own. The puzzle unravels, exposing the tangled threads of corruption and betrayal lurking beneath the surface of the savannah.

Paul Ferrar is a biologist who worked on dung beetles and maggots in northern Australia, on termites in a South African game park, as a rat-catcher in a large mental hospital in the UK, and in the Australian aid program managing cooperative research projects between Australian agricultural scientists and those in developing countries working on similar problems. He is also the author of a 907-page monograph on all you ever wanted to know and more about the maggots of 96 different families of flies. He is married to a very tolerant wife, also a research scientist and administrator but fortunately with a more conventional career.

_ 3 _

I didn’t hear what she said at first, because she was in the lounge room and I was in the kitchen glugging wine. Not imbibing, you understand, but making glugging sounds pouring it over a duck.

And before you jump to any conclusions, no, it wasn’t Marion’s parasitised duck. That was still looking fit and healthy. It was crapping all over the back garden, and was eating plants that I was quite fond of. This duck was dead and trussed, and the wine was an optimistic attempt to make it more palatable than the previous ones.

Some months ago I’d been given a small grant by a conservation group to study seasonal changes in the diet of wild ducks. I think they’re hoping to use the results to get a ban on a new housing area that’s being planned. It’s a hot local issue, and the greenies are prepared to sacrifice a few ducks in the greater cause of defeating the local builders, conspicuous among whom is the local Mayor.

So my assistant has a permit to catch and kill two ducks a month through the year, and we cut them open to read the entrails. We haven’t foretold anything of great interest from the guts, but then we’re only amateurs compared to the Sibyls. We haven’t found much of interest inside the intestines either – mostly lots of grass, and a few snails – so I don’t think the conservationists are going to be too excited either. But it’ll be too late by the time they find out. Maybe I’ll have to embellish the report a bit, because I’m not keen on the housing development either.

I hate waste, and I don’t like to discard the rest of the bird after its guts have contributed to science, so my assistant and I alternate with one for the pot. The variety of recipes for wild duck is not enormous and the appeal’s wearing a bit thin now. The assistant’s last duck went to his cat, which he said wasn’t too impressed either.

Anyway, I thought I heard Marion swearing loudly, which isn’t all that common but neither is it unknown. I thought maybe she’d discovered yet another deficiency in my activities, so I just kept glugging. However, she appeared almost immediately at the kitchen hatch.

‘Bloody hell, Nico – look at this!’ She waved a newspaper at me, narrowly avoiding marinating it along with the duck.

Where her finger pointed I read a small news paragraph:

DEAD TOURIST IDENTIFIED

Nairobi Police have released the name of the man speared to death and partially eaten by a hyena in a Kenya game reserve two weeks ago. He was Mr Fergus Campbell, a retired white police officer who had been living in Mombasa. No arrests have yet been made.

Fo